Hey! ITF/OECD Motorcycle safety Workshop people. Pay Attention!

In June 2021, the International Transport Forum (ITF), the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), the International Motorcycling Federation (FIM), and the motorcycle manufacturers associations (IMMA and ACEM) organised a workshop on PTW Safety, as a follow-up to the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, held in Stockholm in February 2020. The workshop was held over several virtual sessions and involved more than 200 experts from all regions in the world. What was striking was the imbalance between academics, road safety "experts", government officials and representatives of the motorcycling community. What was absent was the input from Road Traffic Crash Scene Investigators - there weren't any and that huge void of knowledge became apparent with the comments, discussions, and remarks made during the workshop.

The published report can be found here: Riding in a safe system – workshop on safety for powered-two-wheelers : final report from a workshop held on 9–13 June 2021 (diva-portal.org) The report was published in December 2021 By VTI (the Swedish Transport Institute) - though not publicized, consequently few people seemed to be aware of its existence. Apparently this is the definitive report because ITF does not have the resources to publish its own report.

With regards the workshop, there was one conversation in particular which really concerned me and that was between the ITF secretary Stephen Perkins and Klaus Tingvall during the proceedings, when Mr Perkins commented about the vociferous motorcyclists suggesting that they were protesting too loudly. Mr Tingvall seemed to agree. In my mind, that set the scene. In the event, within the various workshops, all the participants appeared to do their best to offer views, research and advice.

There were exceptions, people like Nhan Tran from the WHO - a breathe of fresh air, a man who has lived in a LMIC as well as an HIC and knows the issues well. He had previously taken part in a conference debate regarding motorcyclists indicated as vulnerable road users (VRUs). (October 6th 2020, the IfZ conference) He didn't agree with naming motorcyclists as VRUs, nor do I, because I have always refused and fought against the definition of motorcyclists as “vulnerable road users” for the same reasons that Nhan Tran indicated – it’s not the rider, it’s the system.

This article explains: https://motorcycleminds.org/2022/01/27/who-would-have-thought/

Returning to the report published by VTI, of interest to me at least were two topics which I felt incredibly important in order to focus on the conclusions of the report. One was a sentence found on page 60 of the VTI final report of the workshop. Taken from a report by Ding et al (2019) this statement pretty much summed up the entire thrust of the workshop. "The results showed that there is a strong and significant relationship between relative speed and injury severity in motorcycle crashes." This is followed on page 61 with "For instance, in a study by Jamson et al. (2005), a belief that speeding was enjoyable was a significant predictor of the intention to speed. This was also supported by Watson et al. (2007), who found that those who had a positive attitude towards speeding were also more likely to speed. Furthermore, those who speeded (sic) did not believe that it would hurt or endanger others. Besides from attitudes, speeding is also related to social norms, in so far as those who speed believe that this behaviour is approved by others (Duong & Parker, 2018)."

Thus there are two fundamental factors of this report which highlights the importance of bringing the motorcycle safety discourse out into the open and not hide as some have suggested (i.e. if nobody reads it then they'll leave us alone - doesn't work like that sadly). The inference of a sub culture of reckless bikers and the incorrect view that there is a correlation between speed and the severity of injuries has to be addressed. If we don't do this NOW, nothing will change. Riders will crash and be injured without a proper understanding of why this happens. So let's start with speed.

The findings from studies such as Hurt, HH, Jr et al (1981); Ouellet JV and Kasantikul V, (2004); Rice TM et al (2016) Hardy EM et al (2020) have identified a factor that is possibly contentious, which is evidence that indicates that the correlation between speed and the seriousness of injuries is random. In other words, the speed of the motorcycle when it crashes with another vehicle, road infrastructure or an object or animal does not necessarily determine the severity of the injuries of the motorcyclist. These findings are important because it allows analysts and researchers to focus their attention on what the evidence in these studies provide, which is the mechanism of the crash (the trajectory of the rider and what he/she hits) has far more importance than speed in terms of the severity of injuries.

However, that does not diminish the fact that high speed can lead to crashes. The difference between avoiding a crash or not is determined by the ability to be able to stop in time. Simply, the lower the speed, the shorter the braking distance and the greater the possibility of avoiding a crash. In simple terms, the speed limits are there for a reason. It is important to recognise that speed does have an effect in terms of control. Riding on a public road requires riders and indeed drivers to acknowledge that the road is to share and therefore preparation, awareness and riding within the legal speed limits is relevant in terms of crash avoidance. Speed limits should not, however, be a target for riders and there are many examples of crashes occurring because the speed was inappropriate for the conditions of the road and the surroundings.

Moving onto page 61 of the VTI report, which once again brings to the fore social (or psychological) profiling. It doesn't work, it divides, it creates a them and us situation which benefits nobody. Ultimately, a motorcycle or scooter or moped is a vehicle with two wheels, that's all it is. People from all ages, social groups, countries, use this form of transport. It's cheap, it's reliable, it's economical and even a great way to socially distance people from each other. The other factor is that motorcycles are fun to ride - they offer freedom and an amazing ability to travel quickly and efficiently without being stuck inside a box (car). The notion that a vehicle becomes an instrument to attract socially unacceptable people - typically young men or older men with limited education is outrageous and needs to be thrown out with the elitists that use it to make themselves appear professional road safety "experts". They are not. They clutter the space needed for those of us who actually look for ways to reduce rider casualties.

NOW - DOWN TO BUSINESS!

Motorcycle crash causation research has for many years been the domain of academic experts and government departments with an interest in reducing road casualties such as advocating motorcycle improvements to benefit the rider, through technology, better training, as well as improving the environment through cleaner emissions.

Crash investigators such as police investigators or a dedicated Forensic Science team of investigators are those who go out to crash scenes in real time where the crash site is closed to public and the investigators are on scene within a couple of hours[1]. It is this type of detail which offers a true understanding of the dynamics of road traffic crashes which is carried out by specific teams of police or forensic crash investigators, unless funding is made available to private sector teams prepared to go out at all hours and investigate crashes in real time. The landmark Hurt study in Los Angeles, California was the first of this type in 1981. Later studies in Thailand were carried out by part of the same team in 1999 - 2002 focussing on motorcycles.

In Europe there are investigators and teams who use the same principles, however the limitations to these crash scene investigations are that they are typically “follow ups” or rather the investigators attend the scenes at a later date to that of the crash, even weeks after the event[2]. Part of the reason is because the results of these cases are either kept confidential by police or the Coroner’s Office and not made available for scrutiny by interested analysts. This means that information and precious data from the crash scene are lost, the consequences are that important details are missing or are incomplete. There are exceptions, such as the FSNI (Forensic Science Northern Ireland) a team of dedicated road traffic crash scene investigators who, in collaboration with the Police Service Northern Ireland, attend crash scenes in real time (typically within 2 hours of notification from the police). An example of a synthesis of their reports is here: https://investigativeresearch.org/ni-motorcycle-fatality-report-2012/

The “Dynamics of Motorcycle Crashes”(2020) survey cannot take the place of a bona fide real time crash investigation by expert investigators. But what it can do is to provide the voice of the person directly involved in the crash, who understands first-hand what happened, possibly why it happened and how it happened.

Committed motorcyclists, of whom there are many who responded to this survey, love to explain, discuss, comment and give their considered opinions. This survey has allowed them to do exactly that. The respondents were given ample space to write as much as they felt necessary to explain from their perspective, what happened and whose fault they thought it was. In the case of the single crashes, there were those who simply accepted responsibility for lack of attention, making mistakes, or just not understanding the situation in front of them.

In this survey, a sample of 1,578 motorcycle riders from 30 different countries answered a questionnaire which included 39 questions on much more than the typical parameters of crashes. Particular focus was put on questions most relevant to motorcycles like the use of protective equipment and assistance systems, in particular ABS (Advanced Braking Systems). Overall, n.832 riders provided further descriptions of their crashes, which allows deep insight to the dynamics of crashes and their circumstances, which would not be captured in a usual tick box survey.

What became evident from their responses, was that orthodox motorcycle accident analysis appears to be “looking the wrong way”. Typically, motorcycle accident studies have identified human error as the major cause of collisions. Examples of this used are the consumption of alcohol or drugs and lack of insurance and licences. Other reasons considered are lack of training, sports bike riders taking unnecessary risks and riding at high speeds which has been used as a measure for severe injuries. While this may be true, as this study and other investigative reports indicate, it is not the only reason for crash causation and the problem with this analysis is that analysts may have fallen into the trap of using standardized labels to characterize motorcyclists and crash causation rather than looking at the dynamics of the crashes per se.

Training is an important factor for motorcyclists to learn how to avoid crashing. In this survey, 43% of the respondents indicated that they had taken part in different types of post licence training courses and whether the type of training had any bearing on the skills of the rider in an emergency situation. There is no standardization of post licence training and in many countries, instructors are not registered or licenced to teach advanced training.

Technology has been developed in order to reduce the possibility of riders falling or sliding in an emergency situation, however over a third of the riders did not use their brakes, whether they just did not have time or were unable to because of the circumstances. How this can be addressed is relevant to the fact that in this study a third of the motorcycles were equipped with Advanced Braking Systems while 12% had traction control.

It would appear that some motorcycle accident investigation analysts have not differentiated between a motorcycle and a car. In a crash scenario for a car, there are three impacts: the first is the impact of the car against another vehicle or object, the second is the impact of the car occupant with the inside of the car, the third is the impact of the car occupant’s internal organs with the wall of the body[3]. What this means is that both the car and the occupant undergo the same change of velocity in a collision. The body and interior of a car are designed to keep the occupants' change of velocity gradual enough to remain below the injury threshold. By comparison, motorcycles have neither the crushable, energy-absorbing body nor the closed compartment to contain and protect riders. Efforts to create crushable, energy-absorbing structures on motorcycles to protect the rider have not been successful (Rogers & Zellner, 1998, 2001)[4] As a result, riders are vulnerable to injury from every object in their path from the start of a collision sequence until they come to rest[5]. How the motorcyclist separates from the bike and where the motorcyclist ends up, determines whether he/she is injured and to what degree.

What has become apparent from the Dynamics study is that the mechanism of the crash – i.e. how the rider falls and what he/she hits, trumps the discourse of speed versus injuries. This report opens up a whole new chapter of motorcycle crash causation.

https://investigativeresearch.org/the-dynamics-of-motorcycle-crashes-2020/

Elaine Hardy PhD

[1] Motorcycle Fatality Report Northern Ireland (2012); https://investigativeresearch.org/ni-motorcycle-fatality-report-2012/. Pedestrian Fatality Report Northern Ireland (2014); https://investigativeresearch.org/ni-pedestrian-fatality-report-2014/. Vehicle Occupant Fatality Report (2015); https://investigativeresearch.org/northern-ireland-vehicle-occupant-fatality-report-2015/.

[2] IRCOBI/Safe2wheelers Workshop Malaga, September 2016 https://safe2wheelers.eu/workshop-held-at-ircobi-2016-on-crash-reconstruction/

[3] Ref: Damian Coll, Forensic Science Northern Ireland, Senior Collision Investigator.

[4] Rogers NM and Zellner JW; (1998) An overall evaluation of UKDS motorcyclist leg protectors based on IS0 13232; Proceedings Of The 16th Conference On Experimental Safety Vehicles, Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Paper No. 98-S 1 O-O-13; Rogers NM and Zellner JW (2001); Factors and status of motorcycle airbag feasibility research; Proceedings Of The 19th Conference On Experimental Safety Vehicles Paper Number 01-S9-O-207.

[5] In physics, Kinetic Energy = Mass/2 x Velocity^2, that is, half the mass times the velocity squared. Car and occupant both have the same Velocity (and same V^2) but different masses. They have different energies simply because of the difference in mass. Also, note that speed and velocity are not quite the same, though many people use the words interchangeably. Velocity has 2 components: speed AND direction. So, 50 mph north is a different velocity than 50 mph west. Same speed but different velocities because the directions are different.